My first priorities for my sons at the ages of 5 and 2 are: imagination, play, motion and literature.

I grouped imagination/play/motion together because they go hand and hand. At five-years-old, my son is using his tremendous imagination constantly. The two-year-old is quite adept at it too. Playing is their number one job. Right now as I type this, the five-year-old is upstairs with all his stuffed animals. He has arranged them “just so” on his bed, and he says he’s keeping them warm.

He runs up and down the hallway, and he pretends he’s a horse. He “flies” toys around the house. Outside, he’ll find a strand of wild onion, tell me it’s an “eel” and then go feed it “ants.”

I’m thrilled to see that at five- and two-years-old, my boys are beginning to play together well, creating forts and pretending to be dinosaurs or ocean animals. (This is also a big relief to me because I’m getting a little more free time to myself.)

Rough and tumble play is a frequent activity in our house. My boys are always moving, always pretending, and I don’t want to discourage that. There is clear evidence that children learn through play. In addition, authors Michael Gurian (The Wonder of Boys) and Steve Biddulph (Raising Boys) both write about how important it is for boys to have plenty of space, and they need to move their bodies.

Biddulph writes in Raising Boys, “Sitting still at a desk for a long time is usually hard and painful for boys (and some girls too). In early primary school, boys (whose motor nerves are still growing) actually get signals from their body saying, ‘Move around. Use me.’ To a stressed-out first grade teacher, this looks like misbehavior.” (This is in a section titled “Starting School: Why Boys Should Start Later.”)

We read books often. If we’re not going anywhere, I have “book time” with both my boys in the mornings, and then we (my husband and I each take one child) usually read one book at bedtime with the five-year-old and look through several picture books with the two-year-old. We go to the library too, but I’m lucky to have quite a nice collection of children’s books through library sales, so I find we have long stretches of time when we don’t go to the library because we’re busy with other things.

We read storybooks as well as non-fiction. My five-year-old is very fond of science books about bugs, snakes, the earth or whatnot.

For a long time, I wanted to incorporate another way to foster make-believe with both my boys that I could easily participate in. I also wanted to create some kind of morning ritual with them. I wasn’t sure how to do this. I started “book time” but I wanted more than that. Then one morning my five-year-old pulled down the finger puppets that were sitting on the top of my bookshelf in the living room. (They had been there untouched for a long time.) He wanted to do a puppet show.

And that was the beginning of our morning puppet shows. We all take turns putting on a play, and even my two-year-old will get behind the love seat and put on his own puppet show! How cool is that?

We don’t do a puppet show every morning. If we are going somewhere, or if the boys are playing nicely together, I don’t push it, but I do encourage it and ask for a puppet show on a regular basis. My puppet shows are another outlet for me to impart some wisdom, though mostly I entertain. (Once I even let their toy alligator try to eat the puppets. It’s nice for me to have an outlet to do “boy stuff” in a way that suits my energy level. Afterall, I’m a forty-year-old girl who likes to sit in one place!)

My future goals: In the near future, I hope we can find an art class for the five-year-old. Long term goals: some kind of art study, music study, and/or creating more elaborate puppet shows. I’d like to make some puppets or make a puppet stage.

What do you do to stimulate your child’s imagination? And please come back. I’ll continue to go over my homeschool priorities in detail.

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In a Nutshell…

We are project-based homeschoolers who let our kids’ interests take over our lives. (I’m not exaggerating much.) We also teach academic subjects that they will need to get into good universities because that seems to be where they are headed. Our boys have many interests that have led us on a journey of discovery. Some of their interests include science and nature, particularly birds and horticulture. They are also musicians. One son is an aspiring classical pianist. The other wants to play cello as a hobby. My husband is a professor and historian. I’m a writer and love literature. There is never a boring day in this house. Please join us on our journey by following this blog.

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